The Writing Life

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All good things must come to an end, and finally, Eye of Darkness has done so! Woohoo! I have finished the book. 106,662 words and 55 chapters long. Now all that remains is to finish the map (and it’s a little different building one electronically than drawing it from hand) and drop it into the text. And a little editing, too, of course. Cover art needs a little TLC yet, too.

But it is relieving to be done, finally. I’ll wrap up these items in the next few days, and should be able to release it via Createspace, Amazon, and Smashwords shortly thereafter. Of course, the fun part will be learning how to incorporate images into e-books. Not something I’ve done before, but it’ll be a good experience.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to plunge ahead with Topheth rather than Tree of Liberty. Given that The Coppersmith is outselling both Jefferson’s Road books, it seems to make sense. I’ll still get TOL done before summer, I’m sure. Topheth already has 26k words or so and a pretty complete outline of where to go, so I should be able to ramp up the speed needed to finish it by the end of March. That’ll give me about three months to work on TOL before the end of June. Worst case scenario: TOL waits for a September release. Regardless, it’ll be cool to have these books and The Lost Scrolls coming out around the same time.

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I’ve spent the last several days going through Eye of Darkness with a fine-toothed comb, clearing out some of my more problematic little “hobgoblins” and rewriting a few scenes that just didn’t click for me. And the good news is that I’m back on track with the novel, and rapidly closing in on the end. Whew!

In a way, this book has been a bit of a lesson in humility for me. I started it in April, and the goal was to churn it out as quickly as possible. Now, I suppose I could give myself the time off for NaNoWriMo (which I finally won this year for Spilled Milk), meaning I pretty much took off November and most of December. But that still means that it’s taken me about eight and a half months to write this book. Hardly the ten weeks I was hoping for.

It’s not that I can’t write fast (Spilled Milk only took seven weeks). It’s just that this story has turned out to be far more complicated than I’d originally thought. And bigger. About 25% bigger.

Oh, I almost forgot: I took a significant break from it to edit both The Lost Scrolls as well as The Elixir of Life (which I’m still working on). So maybe seven and a half months. About three times what I’d estimated. Stats like that, I should work for the Defense Dept.

Anyway, I’m going to stick with the plan and keep working on finishing books as quickly as possible. The sheer number I have to write has not lessened a bit. In fact, I just came up with two more Janelle Becker book ideas just yesterday: One is called No Honor. In it Janelle has to investigate a serial killer in Dearborn, Michigan who is disguising his kills as “honor killings” among the more fundamentalist Muslims there. The other book is untitled at the moment, but has Janelle infiltrating an environmentalist terror group that functions like a cult. That provides me with six Janelle Becker books. And if I want to get any of these written before I die, I’ve got to get cracking. Oy!

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Just spent a few minutes over at Joe Konrath’s blog – something I recommend any indie author do now and again (if not daily). Good way to get a solid kick in the backside and remember that success in writing is a ten year plan, not a two year or six month plan.  Konrath succeeds because he writes good books. A lot of them. And he independently sells them on Amazon and elsewhere. And he’s built up a solid fan base over several years by consistently providing good content.

At any rate, he put to rest the notion that e-books are a “bubble,” like some talking heads in Europe and elsewhere have been predicting, or that the market is anywhere near “saturated.” He made a great point: that he’d have to sell something like 10,000 books a day, and it would still take him the rest of his life to saturate the market. Oh, and he said this almost a year ago, and Amazon has sold over 6 million more kindles since then. That doesn’t take into account all the other e-readers out there.

Bottom line: I have to keep writing and releasing more books. Keep up the quality. Keep writing the stuff that people are buying (and it’s been a little hit and miss so far), and keep going.

Now that I’m refreshed from reading a little Feist, I think I can finally put Eye of Darkness to bed and get on with some more novels.

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So I’ve had to take a break from writing for a little while. I could feel myself just really burning out, trying to crank out that many words with no real break. I’ve found that it’s helpful, every now and again, to read some fiction when I get like this. It’s kinda like refilling the tank. This week I’ve been enjoying Raymond Feist’s Flight of the Nighthawks. I haven’t picked up fantasy in awhile, so it’s been quite a treat to revisit one of my favorite authors. Given that I’ve been writing one of my own, it seemed a wise choice.

And I think it’s already paid off. I realized what’s been hanging me up about Eye. It had to do with how I was characterizing the fey in the book. I didn’t like it. Now, I’ve got a better plan that’ll require a little rewriting, but I think it’ll make the story stronger overall.

In the meantime I queried my editor about the next Jonathan Munro Adventure, and I got this as a response:

Please do send your manuscript! We give our authors preference for immediate reviews and feedback. Plus, we are working on the 2013 lineup.

So, with that in mind, I’ve been busily incorporating the edits my good friend Linda sent my way awhile back, and I hope to be sending on the manuscript in a week or so. But now, I’ve got to take the kids to their scouting meetings.

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(WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS ADOLESCENT WHINING)

Four weeks into the new year, and 26K words later (yes, I know it’s supposed to be 40K), and I’m still writing this book. I feel like I’m stuck in one of those fun house rooms where the closer you get to the door, the farther away it appears. I know I’m near the end of this book, but writing it is literally like dragging one word out of me at a time. It’s starting to feel like it’s never going to get done! Gaa! (told you there’d be whining).

On a positive note (I guess), I’ve got nearly 98K words written in this book so far. I’m currently working on chapter 52, and I’d swear I’ve only got another 10K words to write. Of course, I thought the same thing 26K words ago. Meanwhile, I’ve been able to go back through parts of it and correct some of the errors I’ve made, as well as insert a little more needful backstory in convenient parts so that more of the ending makes sense and the whole thing remains internally consistent. By far, the hardest thing to do with stories that contain magic is making sure you consistently obey its rules. Believe it or not, some people care about this kind of stuff, and I don’t want to disappoint.

I received some positive feedback and some helpful criticism from the folks over at IndieAuthors.com regarding the cover art, which means I’ve gone back and done a little revision work on it to clean it up a bit and render it better than what I’ve had so far. It’ll work better as a paperback cover this way, so that’s encouraging. I’ll post the new cover once the book is released.

One thing I’ve been debating is whether or not to include a map. It’s not the most critical element, but in the fantasy stories I’ve read, I’ve always enjoyed looking at the maps to figure out where the characters are. Tolkien started the whole thing, and I might want to honor that tradition. If I do, I think I’ll have to hand-draw it first, and then scan it in. I toyed around early on with creating it digitally, but the process was just way too clumsy and time consuming, which is one of the reasons I’ve thought about leaving it out. Of course, if I do make one, I’m gonna have to figure out how to include the images in the e-book versions. Should be fun!

All right. Back to the grindstone.

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Heard back from my editor yesterday with the final edits for The Lost Scrolls. So, rather than working on Eye of Darkness, I’ve been re-re-re-reading (probably are a lot more “re’s” in there) my manuscript with a pen and a fine tooth comb, looking for little imperfections. An out of place comma. A word that should be capitalized. A missing hyphen. If I can get this done and back to her by Thursday, we’ve got a good shot of getting the book out earlier than the August/September date she’d told me about. Instead, we might be able to make May or even April. I don’t know how much more there’ll be to do once this is done, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. At any rate, I’ll git ‘er done and back.

There is still something to be said for traditional publishing. For one thing, it feels more “real,” to me than indie pubbing (not that there’s anything wrong with indie pubbing). Just knowing that my book has been accepted and that someone else is willing to invest money into getting it into print is pretty amazing.

Both my friend Linda and my wife think I shouldn’t give up on traditional publication so easily (did I mention this already?). In truth, I haven’t. I’m all for any means necessary to claw my way to the best sellers’ list. There are some books of mine I know I will indie pub – sequels, for example, to works that have already gone through the submission mill and didn’t make it (but which are still selling. Go figure), like the Coppersmith or Jefferson’s Road. Others, like EoD, I might give traditional pubs a shot. If they take it on, great. If not, that’s what indie pubbing is for.

On a related note, I’ve joined the site IndieAuthors.com, so if anyone wants to check it out or chat, give it a go.

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I reckon this is good news. I just heard back from the Irish Michael Scott’s contact person, who said the following:

Dear Michael,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have passed this on to Random House who said they will handle this immediately.

Best wishes

Hopefully, this will help light a fire under Barnes and Noble to straighten matters out. Of course, this doesn’t mean I’ll wind up with an author page of my own. I half-expect to get lumped in with all the other nondescript Michael J. Scott’s out there publishing various text books few people read, rather than the awesome fiction I write that even fewer… people… read…

Starting to wonder whether of not this is going to work out to my advantage. 😉

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Well, here it is the second week of January, and I’m still writing Eye of Darkness. The book is a little longer than I’d first anticipated – which is fine, given that, according to Mark Coker’s recent comments on Smashwords, readers prefer longer works. But it is putting me behind the eight ball when it comes to cranking down on The Tree of Liberty.

On a side note, my sister contacted me the other day to let me know that none of my books are coming up correctly on Barnes and Noble’s website. I blame my parents. Who knew that Michael Scott or even Michael J. Scott would be such a common name? I’m routinely confused for the Irish author, Michael Scott (no middle initial), and Barnes and Noble seems to think I’ve authored a bunch of text books of some kind or another as well. Episodically, I still get people asking me, “Do you watch The Office?” with a silly grin. Yeah, I’ve never heard that one before.

I seriously did consider writing my books under a pseudonym, or some variation of my name, to make them stand out. In the end, I chose to keep the name Mom and Dad gave me. Now my son, David? He’s got a great author name: D.H. Scott. Just kinda rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it? The kid’s been working like mad on his novel Riverton, which, given that he’s only 13, is actually turning out pretty darn good. Of course, he’s got a 220 pound gorilla in his corner pushing him to stick with it. I’ve read and line edited most of it for him, trying to help him succeed in this (and no, I’m absolutely not doing it for him. Boy, would that be self-defeating). I hope and pray he’s able to finish it. Just to finish a novel for a 13 year old is pretty darn impressive. Not only that, but the story itself is, like I said, pretty darn good so far. I think, once he finishes it, and we clean it up (’cause everyone needs editing), he might actually have something worth publishing. Then again, I’m probably biased.

At any rate, I have contacted Barnes and Noble – again – in an attempt to get this rectified. Never heard back the first two times, so I CC’ed Michael Scott of Ireland’s contact person as well. We’ll see, I suppose. I don’t know why Barnes and Noble just doesn’t set up an Author Page like Amazon does with their Author Central. Wouldn’t be that hard to clean stuff up that way.

Okay, I’m starting to grumble. Mondays are like that. Time to walk away and eat some lunch.

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Spilled Milk – the latest thriller from Michael J. Scott

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is now available on Amazon.com for 99 cents. Here’s the link if you want to take a look:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006RMQYLY/

Spilled Milk tells the story of Gerrold Smith, a man who chooses to become a terrorist to rescue his children from a corrupt foster care system. I hope you enjoy it! I promise I’ll be releasing more soon. Eye of Darkness is nearly complete, and then I’m going to tear into The Tree of Liberty, the next installment of Jefferson’s Road.

Content Advisory for Spilled Milk:

No sex (some discussion of rape and child pornography), some violence (guns, bombs, and car chases), mild profanity (no blasphemy). About 79,000 words (roughly 300 pages printed).

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Spilled Milk – The latest thriller from Michael J. Scott

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is now available through Smashwords.com! I’m very excited about this new release. Spilled Milk started as a NaNoWriMo project almost two months ago, and quickly grew beyond what I’d thought it’d be to the story it is now. Not only did I finish the 50k words in 30 days (that’s the NaNoWriMo challenge), but I kept going with the story until the whole thing wrapped up about a week ago. Seven weeks from concept to completion. I’ve wrapped up the editing (yeah, I know, a week to edit?!) and built the cover art (see? –>), and now it’s up and ready for you to enjoy!

Naturally, I’m releasing it via Amazon as well, but they take a little longer to review their books than Smashwords does, so I’m giving you the address for the Smashwords version. I’ll post the Amazon link as soon as I have it. Also, the book will be available in print through Createspace soon, though I’ve run into a little snag with converting the file for them.

Here’s the back cover blurb:

What would you do to protect your kids? For Gerrold Smith, a widower whose children have been taken from him by the courts, the answer is to hold the city hostage. What starts as a random act of violence quickly escalates into terrorist activity, and as Gerrold discovers the city’s dark secret he must choose between saving his own children, or sacrificing them to save even more.

At any rate, I hope you enjoy it. It’s a little darker than my Jefferson’s Road series, but still enjoyable.

Content Advisory: No sex (some discussion of rape and child pornography), some violence (guns, bombs, and car chases), mild profanity (no blasphemy). About 79,000 words (roughly 300 pages printed).

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